I can't say 2008 was a bad year.  It challenged me a bit and seemed to eliminate all of my direct competitors.  But a larger piece of a smaller pie doesn't add up to a banner year unfortunately. 

Many, if not every lender I send my loans to has tightened up their guidelines in one way or another to make loans more difficult to fund.  Unlike last year, when I told my borrower it wouldn't be easy but we would get it done, 2008 was the year of a quick "Can't be done", unfortunately.  The loans that were funded seemed to take twice as long to process too.

I'm looking forward to 2009 because I understand exactly what we need to do to fund loans in this environment and lenders cannot get any tighter and remain solvent.  There too is a chance that some lenders will loosen back up to scoop up all those undo-able loans.  It's all good!